Brush-tailed phascogale

Phascogale tapoatafa

Blamed on cats

IUCN status: Near Threatened

EPBC Predator Threat Rating: Not assessed

IUCN claim: “The greatest current threat is predation by feral cats”

Studies in support

Cats hunted captive-bred reintroduced phascogales (Soderquist & Serena 1994).

Studies not in support

Phascogale remained at low abundance as cat abundance declined, but no statistical analysis, control, or other variables were tested for (Wayne et al. 2017).

Is the threat claim evidence-based?

There are no studies linking cats to brush-tailed phascogale population trends.

Evidence linking Phascogale tapoatafa to cats. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Phascogale tapoatafa and cats. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that cats contribute to the decline of Phascogale tapoatafa, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance. See methods section in [current submission] for details on evidence categories.

References

Current submission (2023) Scant evidence that introduced predators cause extinctions.

IUCN Red List. https://www.iucnredlist.org/ Accessed June 2023

Soderquist, T.R. and Serena, M., 1994. An experimental reintroduction programme for brush-tailed phascogales (Phascogale tapoatafa): the interface between captivity and the wild. In Creative Conservation: Interactive Management of Wild and Captive Animals (pp. 431-438). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Wayne, A.F., Maxwell, M.A., Ward, C.G., Wayne, J.C., Vellios, C.V. and Wilson, I.J., 2017. Recoveries and cascading declines of native mammals associated with control of an introduced predator. Journal of Mammalogy, 98(2), pp.489-501.